Name this Logical Fallacy - An Ongoing Discussion Dedicated to Fallacies

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Name this Logical Fallacy - An Ongoing Discussion Dedicated to Fallacies

I thought it might be fun to have an ongoing thread where we post examples of statements, often from other threads here, and discuss whether they are a fallacy, and if so what fallacy. This is an area I would like to improve at, I often recognize fallacious statements, but am not sure which fallacy they best represent.

I politely request that we use this thread to only discuss whether the statement itself is a fallacy, not the subject of the statement. With that said, I will start, this is a statement someone made to be before the verdict came though in the George Zimmerman trial. I recognized it as an obvious fallacy, but was not sure which one it best represented.

Quote:

A not guilty verdict would presume the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense.

Argument by assertion? False dichotomy? Some other?

BTW, I could not really find a good forum to put this into so I put it here.

That can be classified as a clumsy attempt at begging the question. The conclusion ("self defense") is restricted to it's predicate ("the jury thinks chasing down a black kid and shooting him"). The jury could have as easily concluded that "chasing down a black kid and shooting him" was murder but did not conclude that was the case. It's also an appeal to emotion, since "black" and "kid" aren't usually elements for jury to consider for the generic crime of murder.

__________________If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed ; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves. - Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm

__________________Circled nothing is still nothing.
"Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel
Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

False dichotomy. The assumption is that there are two options in the USA's legal system: guilt or innocence. This is not true. There's also "not guilty"--which can mean anything from "innocent" to "guilty as sin, but we can't prove it". It was specifically designed that way--only those guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, as defined by the jury of one's peers selected for the trial, can be found guilty. I'm not sure of the criteria for finding someone innocent, but I do know that reasonable doubt is all that is necessary to return a "not guilty" verdict.

__________________GENERATION 8: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

The jury were only saying that the prosecution hadn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The statement "the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense" is clearly a highly distorted ridiculous and more easily refuted version than what they were actually saying. Classic straw man.

The jury were only saying that the prosecution hadn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The statement "the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense" is clearly a highly distorted ridiculous and more easily refuted version than what they were actually saying. Classic straw man.

I'm going to second this... the statement as written does not represent the jury's findings. Zimmerman's story (true or not) was that Martin attacked him, and therefore the claim of self defense. At no time did the jury think 'chasing a kid down and shooting him' was self defense.

The jury were only saying that the prosecution hadn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. The statement "the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense" is clearly a highly distorted ridiculous and more easily refuted version than what they were actually saying. Classic straw man.

The thing is, it's not a straw man in that case--again, they're equating "not guilty" with "innocent", which makes it a false dichotomy. I suppose a false dichotomy can be considered a special case of the straw man fallacy, but it provides a bit more specifics as to the logical errors. It's not JUST that they're making up some argument that's easier to deal with than the real one--they're making a specific and common type of argument.

That said, I do believe we're dealing with multiple fallacies here. The version of the case presented is a straw man, and the interpretation of the verdict is a false dichotomy based on the straw man.

__________________GENERATION 8: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

I hope to be able to follow this enough to learn from this thread. I know the basics of some fallacies and I want to become better at identifying them. Some confuse me a little, and when I go to an Easy Chart to identify them, sometimes I see more than one that fits.

That said, I thought that this was a straw man, too, just given the sentence in itself. "Chasing a black kid and shooting him is self defense" smacks of Straw Man to me because it looks as if someone is trying to take away the big picture and have people focus on just that bit of it.

Now, in the entire picture, I would say is a false dichotomy. But, as Dinwar just said, I can see multiple fallacies in the whole thing.

__________________"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."

I remember a line from the old show called "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." In it, the main character was trying to convince the townsfolk to follow her in some action to protect a black person in town.

She asked them, "What side of the war were you on? The North or the South?"

When the people said, "The North," she said, "Then that means we are all Abolitionists!"

I know that that was not the case. Many people were for the Union to keep the country united and did not necessarily care much about slavery. Others did. So, is that the "Broad Brush" fallacy? Or, if that is not the official name, I think you all know what I mean.

__________________"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."

When the people said, "The North," she said, "Then that means we are all Abolitionists!"

Sweeping generalization.

__________________"Those who learn from history are doomed to watch others repeat it."
-- Anonymous Slashdot poster
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
-- James Nicoll

I don't think 'straw man' is a logical fallacy. It is a rhetorical device used to attack a position the other guy has not maintained. I would call the argument in the OP a false and/or unjustified inference (as well as a poor use of English since the verb should be 'suggest' or 'indicate', not 'presume').

Has the tolerant abstraction of modernity succeeded in defending matter?

Is it not time to get passionate about matter?

When it is pointed out that matter does not need defending he continues

Quote:

Biological matter certainly needs defending from human thought.
Rhino's for instance are being murdered for their horns to satisfy the human thought that eating their horns will make you a better lover.

When it is pointed out this is an argument for protecting rhinos rather than matter, he responds:

Quote:

Are Rhino's not matter?

I thought this might be a category mistake but I looked that up and found out it wasn't. Rhinos are matter and they need protection but the OP was suggesting that matter per se needed protection, whether it had assumed the form of a rhino or a rock or a distant star.

Okay, I'm not good at fallacy naming at all, and that's why I am loving this thread. I need for now to concentrate on the simpler thing; the rhino part. That said, in the above matter with the Rhino, I would say that it could be -

Straw Man - creating the idea that the entire rhino needs protecting when it is their horn that are really the crux of the matter. I'd just think catch and release and take their horns and leave them alive. Still, isn't the Rhinos are Matter a Straw Man/Rhino?

Shifting the Goal Posts - taking one argument and then broadening it from what it originally was, ie moving from killing rhinos for their horns to matter should be protected and then since rhinos are matter it is now totally beyond what the original rhino argument was? But that last part I wrote sounds like a circle back to Straw Man. >_<

__________________"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."

A straw man is just that - a straw man. Clear?. I mean it really is. You are arguing with someone, right? Rather than take you on, they build a straw man and start attacking that instead. IOW they dispute a point you never made.

You dog pee idea is correct but the rhino one isn't. In the rhino case the person who said matter needed protection did not have a false position attributed to him. He tried to shift his position from:

LOL. I think we need to deal with 'begging the question' too because I'm not sure you have that either. I should say I really dislike the expression as I find it not at all clear. I think I know what it means but I don't know why anyone would call it that. It's also called (even more unhelpfully) petitio principii.

Begging the question means constructing an argument in which the conclusion is also used as a premise. The best example I can think of right now arises in the Amanda Knox murder case. In that case a witness called Curatolo claims he saw Knox and her boyfriend in a piazza on the night of the murder at a time when they claimed to be at his place. However, at trial he said he also saw 'disco buses' that same night. Now, it was established that there were disco buses the night before but not on the night in question. The prosecution argued that since it was known for certain where they were the night before, so they could not possibly have been in the square that night, it followed that Curatolo must have seen them on the night of the crime.

Complicated.

But, the prosecution argument contains a fallacy which emerges more clearly like this:

Curatolo saw them on 31 Oct or 01 Nov
We know he cannot have seen them on 31 Oct
Therefore he saw them on 01 Nov.

LOL. I think we need to deal with 'begging the question' too because I'm not sure you have that either. I should say I really dislike the expression as I find it not at all clear. I think I know what it means but I don't know why anyone would call it that. It's also called (even more unhelpfully) petitio principii.

Begging the question means constructing an argument in which the conclusion is also used as a premise. The best example I can think of right now arises in the Amanda Knox murder case.

(Abbreviated) ---

Complicated.

But, the prosecution argument contains a fallacy which emerges more clearly like this:

Curatolo saw them on 31 Oct or 01 Nov
We know he cannot have seen them on 31 Oct
Therefore he saw them on 01 Nov.

Begging the question: did he see them at all?

I do think I'm getting it. It's like that word that is on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite grasp it at the moment. But I'm on the verge! I definitely follow your example.

Yes, this one is awful and tricky. Your example is really quite good.

As for the "God Arguments" maybe it is more like this -

"God created the Universe!"

"Well, I wouldn't say that. With the help of scientific study we cannot see any gods and what we do see does not require any."

"But can you prove exactly what happened at the PRECISE moment of the so-called Big Bang?"

"Well, not exactly, but..."

"See! Then why can't it be God?"

Okay...hesitating to hit the "Submit Reply" button!

__________________"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."

I don't think 'straw man' is a logical fallacy. It is a rhetorical device used to attack a position the other guy has not maintained. I would call the argument in the OP a false and/or unjustified inference (as well as a poor use of English since the verb should be 'suggest' or 'indicate', not 'presume').

It's both.

__________________People who post links to Youtube with no comment are destroying the concept of internet conversation. Perdition's flames await them

A not guilty verdict would presume the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense.

If I am reasoning this correctly, I think people call this a Straw Man because the statement includes the person's ethnicity, in this case, black. So, if he was not black, then the verdict could easily have been guilty. But if the person is black, then it must be all right to shoot him; thus the not guilty.

Ack...this sounds like a cross between building a straw man out of "race" and equaling that to either guilty or not guilty.

Taking the risk again to try this out for understanding.

__________________"Hercules, what is a secret?"
"Why, a secret is something you tell practically everybody confidentially." Wheeler and Woolsey in "Diplomaniacs."

I see. That is not very illuminating. Why is a straw man (argument) a logical fallacy?

Is this serious?

How can presenting an argument no one's making, showing the argument is flawed, and then claiming to have defeated a completely different argument NOT a fallacy? The specific error in logic is the last bit.

I've learned you like to quibble about language to the point of shutting down discussion. Let's call all erronious reasoning valsomas from now on. Will that make you happy? A straw man argument is definitely a valsoma. A fallacy is a type of valsoma, but for this discussion it's irrelevant if it fits both or not. (For the record, yes, the OP begs the question to some extent--however, most people recognize that, again, fallacy taxonomy is not precise).

Originally Posted by Minarvia

Ack...this sounds like a cross between building a straw man out of "race" and equaling that to either guilty or not guilty.

Again, I believe the more critical error here is that false dichotomy. The options are NOT just guilty and innocent--"not guilty" doesn't mean innocent, not by a long shot. Yet that's what people present it as.

__________________GENERATION 8: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

In the first half of a football game, the score is Lions 13, Cowboys 10. The Lions try and miss a (3 point) field goal as the half winds down. The final score of the game is Cowboys 27, Lions 26.

Then someone will say "if only the Lions had made that field goal, they'd have won 28-27!"

Which of course is wrong. The entire course of the game would've been different, not to mention physics stuff like people being in a slightly different place, etc. But I don't know what this fallacy is called.

In the first half of a football game, the score is Lions 13, Cowboys 10. The Lions try and miss a (3 point) field goal as the half winds down. The final score of the game is Cowboys 27, Lions 26.

Then someone will say "if only the Lions had made that field goal, they'd have won 28-27!"

Which of course is wrong. The entire course of the game would've been different, not to mention physics stuff like people being in a slightly different place, etc. But I don't know what this fallacy is called.

Hypothesis Contrary to Fact

Counterfactual Fallacy

Speculative Fallacy

"what if" Fallacy

Wouldchuck

"If [A] then [b]" is a valid premise.

The premise is considered fallacious if both ~A and A is not discretely linked to B.

But consider another example:
P: If [you had flipped heads], then [you would not have flipped tails].

How can presenting an argument no one's making, showing the argument is flawed, and then claiming to have defeated a completely different argument NOT a fallacy? The specific error in logic is the last bit.

I've learned you like to quibble about language to the point of shutting down discussion. Let's call all erronious reasoning valsomas from now on. Will that make you happy? A straw man argument is definitely a valsoma. A fallacy is a type of valsoma, but for this discussion it's irrelevant if it fits both or not. (For the record, yes, the OP begs the question to some extent--however, most people recognize that, again, fallacy taxonomy is not precise).

Again, I believe the more critical error here is that false dichotomy. The options are NOT just guilty and innocent--"not guilty" doesn't mean innocent, not by a long shot. Yet that's what people present it as.

Funny, I thought you were supposed to be ignoring me. I have never heard of a 'valsoma' before. Curiously, neither has the internet. I suggest we don't call it that as it already has perfectly well known name, 'a straw man argument' and your alternative doesn't seem to exist. I am sorry if that seems like a quibble to you.

Since you seem to be making up new words I am not really in a position to answer your post. I remain of the view that a straw man argument is no more logically fallacious than any other evasion and also that the OP has nothing to do with straw men.

Just to add, a straw man argument may be perfectly logical. It might utterly destroy the straw man it erected for the purpose of demolition. In the context of the argument which it seeks to evade it simply employs a false premise that:

Your argument is X

but it is wrong for reasons Y and Z.

A false premise is not a failure of logic. It's only a false premise. It contains no logic at all.

With some of these, I think it's not logical fallacies, per say, but rather starting an argument with one (or often more) factually incorrect assumptions stealthily worked into the premise. "False dichotomy" comes closer than strawman here, but neither are precisely perfect.

Take the OP's example:

Quote:

A not guilty verdict would presume the jury thinks chasing a black kid down and shooting him is self-defense.

It's assumes that the jury is faced with a false dichotomy.
It assumes to know what 12 people believe or think without any nuance.
It assumes race is the only deciding factor in the potential "not guilty" verdict.
Etc and so on.

(I think the phrase "The stupid! It burns!" most accurately describes at least the subjective experience of trying to tease out all of the false assumptions in such an argument as well as the headache that results in trying to counter them. )

Here's how a similar argument could be a strawman:

"The problem with deciding that killing any black person will necessarily be a de facto act of self defense, is that over the course of US history, thousands of clearly innocent black people have been murdered simply because of the color of their skin. Some were small children. Tell me, why would anyone need to murder a 3 year old in self defense? What sort of sick mind wants to set such a legal precedent into law, and what's the justification?"

__________________The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts ~ Bertrand Russell

In the first half of a football game, the score is Lions 13, Cowboys 10. The Lions try and miss a (3 point) field goal as the half winds down. The final score of the game is Cowboys 27, Lions 26.

Then someone will say "if only the Lions had made that field goal, they'd have won 28-27!"

Which of course is wrong. The entire course of the game would've been different, not to mention physics stuff like people being in a slightly different place, etc. But I don't know what this fallacy is called.

I think it's pretty funny that there are 38 replies and no apparent agreement on which logical fallacy the OP even represents. I think the issue is probably compounded by the fact that many Internet sources seem to give different explanations and examples of various fallacies.

I don't understand/agree with the suggestions that it is a strawman. I do understand how it could appear to be a false dichotomy, that was one of my suggestions. But I'm surprised that not many people seem to agree with Cylinders assertion that it is begging the question. I actually think begging the question seems to be a better identification of it.

If we are going to say it's a false dichotomy, it seems we have to assume that there is a second implied option, but that seems incorrect to me, since the author of the fallacy did not offer a second option as part of their reasoning, in fact part of the flaw in their reasoning in the first place is that they offered only one option.